2019-20 Hong Kong protests

2019-20 Hong Kong protests
The Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement, also known as the 2019 Hong Kong protests, or the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, were a series of demonstrations from 15 March 2019 in response to the introduction by the Hong Kong government of the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill on extradition. It is one of the largest series of demonstrations in the history of Hong Kong, with thousands arrested in violent scenes. By mid-2020, the Hong Kong government had declared the restoration of peace and stability with the imposition of the national security law.

The protests began with a sit-in at the government headquarters on 15 March 2019 and a demonstration attended by hundreds of thousands on 9 June 2019, followed by a gathering outside the Legislative Council Complex on 12 June which stalled the bill's second reading. On 16 June, just one day after the Hong Kong government suspended the bill, a larger protest took place to push for its complete withdrawal. The protest was also in response to the perceived excessive use of force by the Hong Kong Police Force on 12 June. As the protests progressed, activists laid out five key demands. Police inaction during the 2019 Yuen Long attack and brutality in 2019 Prince Edward station attack further escalated the protests.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam withdrew the bill on 4 September, but refused to concede to the other four demands. A month later, she invoked emergency powers to implement an anti-mask law, escalating the confrontations. The storming of the Legislative Council in July 2019, deaths of Chow Tsz-lok and Luo Changqing, two shooting incidents of protesters, one of whom was unarmed, and sieges of the Chinese University and the Polytechnic University in November 2019 were landmark events. The unprecedented landslide victory of the pro-democracy camp in the November local election was widely regarded as a de facto referendum on the city's governance.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 largely silenced the protests. Tensions mounted again in May 2020 after Beijing's decision to promulgate a national security bill for Hong Kong. More than a hundred people, including several prominent activists, have been arrested since the imposition of the law. The resulting political atmosphere, along with the crackdown on civil society, sparked a wave of mass emigration from the city.

The approval ratings of the government and the police plunged to their lowest points since the 1997 handover. The Central People's Government alleged that foreign powers were instigating the conflict, although the protests have been largely described as "leaderless". The United States passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act on 27 November 2019 in response to the movement. The tactics and methods used in Hong Kong inspired other protests that followed worldwide.

Country
  • Hk
    Hong Kong ( or ;, Cantonese: ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta in South China. With 7.5 million residents of various nationalities in a 1104 km2 territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world. Hong Kong is also a major global financial centre and one of the most developed cities in the world.

    Hong Kong was established as a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island from Xin'an County at the end of the First Opium War in 1841 then again in 1842. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898. British Hong Kong was occupied by Imperial Japan from 1941 to 1945 during World War II; British administration resumed after the surrender of Japan. The whole territory was transferred to China in 1997. As one of China's two special administrative regions (the other being Macau), Hong Kong maintains separate governing and economic systems from that of mainland China under the principle of "one country, two systems".